Should Have Known Better
by Make-It-New
Summary: What should have been a simple shopping trip for Quinn and Rachel takes an interesting turn when Rachel comes across something very unexpected and unacceptable. Faberry one-shot.


_Shelter will be updated tomorrow. I wasn't able to give the next chapter the focus it deserved until I got this idea out of my head._

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Quinn should have known better. She knew how her girlfriend could get about certain things. She had known her for close to ten years, she should have completely expected something like this was possible. She knew something this small could easily become a huge deal, it had happened in the past and she knew it would be happening again in the future. She really honestly thought this would be just a simple trip to The Christmas Tree Shoppe to pick up a few things they needed for around the house. She didn't think Rachel would cause such a ruckus. She really should have known better.

It all started out simple enough, they strolled casually through the craft section, looking at the various materials and joking about the things they were going to knit when they sat side by side in their rocking chairs in fifty years. Rachel always said she'd knit socks and nothing else. She never had any reasoning for deciding it was going to be socks and only socks, so Quinn just smiled along and accepted it was just another adorable quirk of hers. Quinn said she'd be more eclectic with her choices, maybe knitting some baby clothes, maybe some sweaters, or even a scarf or two.

They both knew it didn't matter what they were knitting, the only thing they truly cared about was that they were sitting there doing it together. They were okay with having plans for the rest of their lives already, they both knew it was going to be the two of them together forever, so why not plan it out now.

Rachel tried to correct Quinn once or twice when she said fifty years, she tried to argue that seventy five was not nearly old enough to be stuck in a rocking chair knitting. Rachel planned to still be on Broadway at seventy five, Quinn didn't have the heart to tell her that she hoped they were retired and enjoying their family together by then.

They circled around the clothing section, neither of them interested in the cheap knock off clothes that were being sold. They made their way into the book section, Quinn never turned down an opportunity to add a new book to her already vast collection.

"If you're going to buy another book I should head over to the hardware section and find another bookshelf, our five clearly won't cut it any longer," Rachel tried to sound serious, she really did, but neither girl was falling for it.

"Unless that bookshelf comes with someone who'll come to our house to assemble it, you keep your cute behind right here with me. Do you remember what happened the last time you tried putting something together in our house? Santana had to come over and help me redo half of the drywall to cover the hole you made and I had to hear her bitch about how stereotypical it was for two lesbians to be dry walling for five hours. Five hours worth of Santana's lesbian jokes. The girl hasn't had a new joke in six years," Quinn reminded causing a full blown pout to break out over Rachel's face. She didn't like being called out for when she was wrong.

When they first got together four years ago, Quinn was the biggest sucker for that pout. Rachel threw it on her face and Quinn would crumble, giving her anything and everything she asked for. Like the adorable little puppy Rachel had brought home one night explaining it was a rescue that needed a loving home and caring parents. Between Quinn's pout and the adorable puppy eyes the dog was giving her, she folded immediately. Liza was a very happy addition to their family and had become quite the little diva just like her mom.

The pout had also worked the day Rachel came home carrying a tiny little kitten that looked like he was way too close to not making it another minute. Rachel had seen him while she was on her way home on the side of the road and immediately pulled over almost causing an accident in the process. She scooped the little orange kitten up and cuddled him into her arms while she drove home. The pout wasn't completely needed that night, Quinn fell in love with the tiny ball of fur as soon as she set her eyes on him, but she still made Rachel pout for him if only to not appear to be a complete push over. Hundreds of dollars in vet bills and plenty of TLC from Rachel and Quinn later, Pip was another happy addition to her home.

Thankfully for Quinn and her wallet, time had hardened her to that automatic reaction she had to Rachel's pout. It still worked every once and a while but most of the time, Rachel's pout went ignored, just as it was now.

"It was not my fault the directions were in Swedish!" she huffed walking to the other side of the aisle to browse. Quinn let her go, knowing she would come back after a little bit. She knew better than to follow her girlfriend, that would result in a much larger fight that would land Quinn on the shit list, someplace she tried really hard to stay as far away from as possible. They'd been dating long enough for Quinn to know exactly how to handle Rachel and vice versa.

When Quinn was having a bad day because her boss was riding her all day to meet the ridiculously tight deadlines she had set for her Quinn would seethe on her short car ride home and them come into the house with a sour attitude and Rachel would know to leave her alone until she came to her looking for affection that Rachel would very gladly give. It was a hard adjustment for both of them in the beginning, they had to learn all the minor idiosyncrasies of each other, but it was the best experience they had ever gone through. They loved learning each other, inside and out no matter the struggles and frustrations it caused.

"Oh my god!" Quinn heard Rachel shriek causing her to drop the book she was reading the back cover of in panic. It had been one that she was quickly growing more and more interested in reading but it was left forgotten when she thought something had happened to Quinn. The complete and utter fear in Rachel's voice made Quinn's blood run cold, thinking something horrible had happened to her. She all but ran to Rachel's side, checking for blood or bruises or something that was wrong. She found nothing. With the way Rachel had screamed she figured there would at least be blood.

"Why are you screaming like you were shot? Are you trying to give me a heart attack or something," Quinn admonished, placing her hand over her heart to try to calm its rapid pace. It felt like it was going to beat right out of her chest. She didn't notice the book Rachel was holding in her hands or the look of pure unadulterated fury on her face as she stared down at the book.

"Look at this!" she cried, shoving the large black book in her face. Quinn could vaguely see a woman's face on the cover but with Rachel's sudden jerky movements it was impossible to differentiate who it was. Quinn reached out and grabbed Rachel's hands to stop her from continuing to wave the book around like she was crazy. People were starting to give them weird looks and Quinn assumed Rachel didn't want a meltdown at The Christmas Tree Shoppe to be picked up by the paparazzi.

The girls had been relatively lucky thus far, Rachel's name was definitely becoming much more recognized as she continued to land big roles on Broadway but they had been able to keep their private life mostly private. They still ran into a few issues every now and again. Just the other day Rachel was photographed leaving the gym after a workout with Santana and the gossip magazines had a field day with that. She was suddenly a cheater and having an affair with her girlfriend's best friend. What the gossip magazines failed to figure out was that they were together for the work out so Santana could talk to Rachel about her plan to propose to her longtime girlfriend, Brittany. No one knew how to plan better than Rachel.

Quinn laughed off the articles when they first started showing up, knowing without a doubt that Santana and Rachel were not hooking up. It was still a very tumultuous relationship for both of them, they had their days where they didn't even want to be in the same room as each other. Quinn jokingly called Santana after she saw the article for the first time, threatening her to stay away from her girl. Santana hung up on her.

Rachel took it all in stride, she loved being on the stage and would deal whatever was handed to her because of it. If they wanted to take pictures of her while she took her garbage to the curb or did her grocery shopping they could. She wasn't going to pretend to be anything she wasn't just because there were people watching her do things now. Quinn dealt with it because she knew how much Rachel loved what she did and would never say or do anything to take away from that.

As soon as Quinn got Rachel to stop waving the book in front of her face she noticed who it was on the cover and suddenly Rachel's cry made more sense. A younger Barbra Streisand was on the cover of the book that appeared to be a short biography of Rachel's idol. She couldn't tell much from the cover of the book but she was guessing Rachel's anger didn't have to do with that particular topic anyway. But Quinn couldn't figure out exactly why Rachel looked so angry. She usually loved finding stuff like this and would normally insist on buying three or four or ten copies, depending on how rare it was. They practically had a whole room in their house devoted to the singer. Quinn had managed to convince Rachel to add some other Broadway paraphernalia to it as well so they didn't look like they were stalking Barbra.

"I'm still not sure why you were screaming," Quinn said in what she hoped was a kind voice. She wasn't upset with Rachel in the slightest and she didn't want it to come across that way.

"Look at the price tag, Quinn. They are only charging $7.99 for Barbra! Do they not understand that she is the greatest female vocalist of her time on top of being an award winning actress? She won the EGOT and these imbeciles aren't even charging ten dollars for her story! I don't care that this is so unauthorized it's not even funny, it's still Barbra's face on the cover! This is a travesty, I need to speak with a manger right away," Rachel ranted deadly serious.

Quinn tried to judge whether or not she needed to run interference here and stop Rachel from making an even bigger scene or let it play out. She knew her girlfriend was capable of a very large, very dramatic debate on the topic of Barbra and she was pretty certain she didn't want to be the one of the end of that anger if she stopped her from going to the manager. Don't get her wrong, she loved when Rachel was passionate about something. She could listen to the girl talk about a piece of paper passionately and by the end of her speech, Quinn would understand just how special that piece of paper really was.

With that being considered, Quinn let Rachel stalk off to find a manager or an employee that would be capable of pointing her in the direction of someone in charge. The book was grasped tightly in her small hands and Quinn looked down to notice all of the rest of the copies were piled up in their shopping cart. All twenty three copies.

Rachel returned a few minutes later, a proud smile on her face and Quinn knew right away that Rachel had gotten her way. She wanted to apologize to whoever Rachel had spoken to, knowing her girlfriend probably scared the poor manager half to death. She held up the book for Quinn to see, never once removing the bright smile from her face. Quinn noticed the small $7.99 sticker had been removed and replaced with a bright red large sticker that read $24.99.

"It took some convincing, but I was able to make Robert see my way. He was very eager to change the price for me after I explained to him in detail just how important Barbra is to society and just how unacceptable it was for him to be selling a book about her life for such a minimal. I offered to compose a PowerPoint on the topic but he very politely told me he didn't want me to have to go through that much work. I know he was just baiting me but whatever, I have righted this wrong and helped save Barbra's legacy," Rachel said, placing the book down on top of the large stack that was already in the cart. Quinn wanted to call her out on it. She literally just had the price tripled and she was still intending on buying over twenty copies.

"And she thinks I need a new bookshelf," Quinn mumbled under her breath knowing if Rachel had heard her she wouldn't be happy with her. "Sweetheart, do you think that maybe buying all those copies may be slightly over doing it?" Quinn tried very hard to not upset Rachel further. She knew how the girl felt about her Barbra memorabilia and braced herself for the lecture she assumed she was about to get. Instead Rachel completely surprised her.

"Of course, why didn't I think of that? If I buy all the copies no one else would have the opportunities to enlighten their lives by reading about Barbra. You're so smart," Rachel complimented pulling ten or so books out of the cart and placing them back on the shelf. "Do you have a pen?" she asked turning back to look at Quinn.

Quinn to her credit didn't question her girlfriend and just simply handed over the pen she had been carrying in her pocket. When Rachel turned back to the shelf she blocked Quinn's view of what she was doing. It took her a minute or two to complete her task before handing the pen back to Quinn.

"I think I'm ready to check out, how about you?" she asked looping her arm through Quinn's. She knew for certain in that moment that Rachel was not upset at all. The last thing Rachel wanted when she was upset was affection or cuddling. Rachel wanted to pace and rant and make everyone understand why she was upset.

"I'm definitely ready," Quinn said honestly, happy to get away from the store where Rachel had just caused a scene. It was actually tame compared to some of the other things she had done in the past.

Quinn still cringed involuntarily when she thought about the zoo trip she and Rachel had gone on a little over a year ago. It was just before Rachel had landed her first big role so they were still able to go to large venues such as a zoo and not have to worry about anyone recognizing her. She really should have known better than to bring Rachel there, her girlfriend was a very devote vegan and animal lover, the zoo was definitely not her smartest idea.

Rachel had taken one look at the penguin exhibit, one of Quinn's personal favorites, and marched right up to the young kid who was collecting tickets at the entrance and reamed him out for the zoo's inappropriate and inhumane treatment of poor defenseless penguins. The boy couldn't have been much more than seventeen but he was well over six feet and built like a linebacker. Quinn had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing as she watched this giant of a man cower from a tiny woman that paled in comparison to his size.

Eventually his manager came over to find out what all the commotion was about. What he didn't participate was Rachel turning her focus onto him and continuing to berate both of them for allowing such a travesty to continue on. After a few choice words that still made Quinn laugh when she thought about it, both girls were escorted out of the park and not so kindly asked to not return. Rachel, always the one that needed to get the last word, had turned right to him and not so politely told him where he could shove his animal abusing ways.

Instead of answering, Rachel pulled Quinn towards the checkout breaking her out of the memory she was stuck in. Quinn couldn't help but smile when she saw how happy Rachel was now. So what if she had redesigned the entire sign proclaiming Barbra Streisand to be an essential musical icon and crossed out the original price to now read $24.99.

So what if they were about to spend over 200 dollars on books that Rachel probably already knew everything that was written in it? Hell, Rachel could probably rewrite the book and correct all the inconsistencies she was sure to find when she read it. It was just money and not worth even close to as much to Quinn as Rachel's happiness was.

So what if her girlfriend had more passion and devotion in her pinky finger than most people did in their entire bodies? She wouldn't trade her for anything else in the world. She was on the receiving end of that passion all of the time and she wouldn't even begin to complain about that. Her drive and the ultimate need she felt to be the best at everything were two of her most redeeming qualities and two things that attracted Quinn to her from the very beginning.

Quinn knew she should have expected it, but even if she could have seen it coming and been able to do anything to change it from happening she wouldn't have. She loved every little thing about Rachel, including her devotion to Barbra Streisand. As long as Rachel loved her just as much and hopefully slightly more Quinn would definitely be okay.

As they walked to the car hand in hand with Quinn carrying all of their bags at her insistence, Rachel looked up at her with so much adoration in her eyes before leaning up on her tip toes to place a sweet kiss on Quinn's cheek and whispered I love you in her ear. Yeah, Quinn wouldn't change a thing.


End file.
